How Apple Will Trump Microsoft's Surface Computing Initiative

Microsoft (MSFT) announced yesterday a new direct-manipulation concept and user interface targeted at the gaming and hospitality industries. The system uses projectors and cameras beneath a translucent flat surface to give user the appearance of seamlessly manipulating both real and virtual objects in the same environment. As an example, a user might put down a loyalty card for a casino, and have the system recommend restaurants and shows for the user to go based upon their prior preferences. In another demonstration application, a user put down a WiFi-enabled digital camera and was able to shuffle through and manipulate the pictures in it.

Make no mistake: multi-touch and direct manipulation interfaces like Milan (Microsoft's development code name for surface computing) are very cool. In fact, that's one of the reasons the consumer market is so excited about Apple's (AAPL) iPhone: it will be the first multi-touch direct manipulation device available to consumers. But as with many concept demos, the devil here is in the details, and Microsoft's surface computing initiative is very different from -- and probably will never compete with -- the technologies Apple is introducing in the iPhone.

Microsoft's technology:

1. Depends on cameras and projectors for its magic. This isn't a touch-screen technology, but an optical one. That has some huge advantages, like the ability to use brushes to paint, but also has some disadvantages, like the need for dim lighting to avoid washing out the screen and the need to put bar codes on objects for the system to recognize them.

2. Focuses on large interactions instead of small. Despite claims Microsoft has been shopping this technology to Windows Mobile phone makers, this technology is clearly designed to work primarily in large kiosk-like settings than mobile phones. You need large empty spaces for optical projectors and cameras -- that's why you can't hang projection TVs on your wall like you can a plasma or LCD display. There's no room in a mobile phone for the optics needed to implement this type of surface system there -- and using a multi-touch enabled touch-screen would undoubtedly run afoul of Apple's patents on that technology.

3. Doesn't fit in the PC ecosystem. Even if consumers were OK with the many-cubic-foot bulk of these surface systems, Microsoft says in its press release that it will distribute this technology largely through a distribution and development agreement with International Game Technology. That means you're much more likely to see this technology in your next video poker machine at the Venetian casino than you are in the PC you get from Best Buy.

So surface computing isn't the iPhone or a PC technology. Does that matter? After all, Apple isn't doing anything with multi-touch for computers, is it?

Well wait a few weeks and you may be surprised at how much Apple is doing with multi-touch. We've already seen small applications of multi-touch on Apple MacBooks and MacBook Pros, where two-finger scrolling has become the norm. But as we've noted before, multi-touch gestures combined with a new 3D finder have the potential to revolutionize the PC user interface -- and we believe that that interface will be part of Apple's next OS Leopard. And given that Apple has recently cut its display prices to reduce inventory and has several multi-touch gesture and flat touchscreen patents already filed, we may see touchscreen-supporting flat-panel displays and notebooks introduced along with Leopard too.

Our bet is that Steve Jobs won't spill the beans on Apple's multi-touch efforts at the D Conference today -- he'll just show off the iPhone and leave it at that. But make no mistake: Apple has similar technology in its development queue. But in Apple's case, we won't see it as a demo. It will come in actual products you can buy.

Full disclosure: the author owns Apple stock at the time of writing.

Comments

[Malkiel]

All laptops seem to have effective touchpad "mice" now, so the idea is already out there. It's been my observation, though, that any system that requires touching the readable screen itself renders the screen an unsanitary mess, so I think accessory touchpads (or keyboard pads) will be the practical road in the future regardless of the "cool" factor...

2007 May 31 10:12 AM

[Tom B]

I think you are probably right.

2007 May 31 10:23 AM

[Manifold]

I think you're making the mistake of confusing Surface with Surface Computing. The difference lies in what is here and what is coming.

What is here is Surface, Microsoft's first example of what Surface Computing is. Surface is what you described; it's a rear projected fixture targeted at industry rather than the consumer (I should mention that in the press release Microsoft briefly states that International Game Technology is one of many planned distributors and developers of Surface, and gave no indication as to the extent of this agreement).

What's coming is Surface Computing, which employs the same usability principles as Surface while radically redifing the apparatus. Baller stated that in 5 years he expects Surface Computing to live up to its name, and find its ways onto any surface from walls to your desktop to a hallway mirror. I think Apple will have its hands full if this is the direction Microsoft is heading.

2007 Jun 02 01:54 AM

[Swampthing]

Who cares about touch? Why did Micrsoft go off on a tangent?

Microsoft and Google were pushing mobility. Why would Microsoft have the consumer sit around their PC coffee table?

Does someone else own the connection between the mobile device and the physical world to get instant information?

With a web enabled mobile device and Qode, a consumer / web user could click on a, 1D, 2D, UPC, QR, slogan, logo, trademark, keyword, RFID, etc. and get price comparison, location, watch a preview of a movie, get a schedule, get a coupon, click on link to a short story (like the WSJ) that goes to the whole story, concert tickets, an advertisment in a news paper, stock information, sent instantly back to me on my mobile device.

So how innovative is Microsoft and their new Surface PC table because I do not see it? Where is the out of the box thinking? I can do this already with my cell phone! Best of all I do not have to be in one place.

What is your next mouse? Your mobile device?

Qode, is a mobile platform, that offers one click to content.

Check out Mobile Code Consortium, MC2.

Check out Qode.com.

xqaz.com/

Why sit at a table? Permission based interaction with the consumer where ever they are.

Now if the carriers would get with the program.

2007 Jun 03 08:46 PM

[sighK]

your comparing 2 products that are not the same, it's like your comparing a phone to a fridge. at least compare it to something similar, iphone vs zune would be a better comparison, although they still aren't quite the same.

As you can see this iphone call make phone calls, the refrigerator on the other hand cannot. Because of this I believe the Iphone will destroy the refrigerator market.

Another thing, you are comparing it to be used with Finder, That has not been done yet, microsoft has a surface table, not mac so you are kinda contradicting yourself in this manner.

2009 May 12 05:17 PM